Chapter 1
My drooping eyes fixed on the near-empty whiskey bottle. Cora got up to get more ice.
“Another bottle?” asked Hugo.
“Yes, please.”
He walked to the pantry and got more whiskey.
He downed his glass in one big gulp, like a shot of tequila.
I did the same, looking around at my friends under the warm glow of the lamplight.
We were drunk and exhausted, worn out. For a moment I missed when we were kids roaming the streets of Pingo d’água, playing ding-dong ditch, scaring the animals or stealing from the church collection plate.
Before I knew it, the clock struck two AM.
Hugo was curled into a ball in the corner dozing, glass in hand, waking every now and then for another sip.
Through the picture window loomed the hotel across the street, clad in mirrors, most of its rooms shrouded in dark curtains.
In one of the sixth-floor windows, a couple was having sex.
I drank in silence, watching the shadowed figures shift positions, arms and legs tensed, heads tipped, and I imagined their moans, their sweat, their desire.
I’ve always had a bit of a voyeuristic streak.
Half an hour later, the couple disappeared through a door—the bathroom, I assumed—and then went back to bed, this time to sleep.
My brain worked like that hotel: After an orgasm, the lights went out.
Vladimir doesn’t exist, Piglet had said.
He really wasn’t saved in Umberto’s contacts.
And after stopping at the Fasano, Virgínia had gone straight to meet Umberto. Could I really have been that stupid?
“Umberto is drowning in debt,” I said a couple of hours later. “It doesn’t make sense for him to be the ringleader.”
On the table, Piglet and Cora were rolling their tenth joint. He shot me a scornful look, like he couldn’t believe I was still thinking about it.
“I still haven’t found who operates that offshore account where most of the money goes.”
“Do you think it could be in his name?”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
I stared at Piglet like a disappointed child who’s just found out Santa Claus isn’t real. Cora licked the rolling paper, but she was so out of it her fingers kept slipping, and she had to start over. Hugo’s half-lidded gaze wandered over us like his mind was navigating more entertaining universes.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We wait,” said Piglet. “I still haven’t confirmed anything. It’s just a hunch.”
Giving up on the joint, Cora grabbed Piglet and planted a sloppy French kiss on his lips, straddling him.
“I’ve gone through three stages of drunk, Love Nugget,” she said, licking his ear. “Impressionable…”—her mouth dipped, running her tongue over the folds of his neck—“vulnerable…”—she moved back up, biting his chin—“and submissive. Right now, I’m submissive.”
Drunk off my ass, my voyeuristic desires had reached their peak.
Piglet laughed, scooping Cora up in his arms, and they disappeared down the hall together.
It wasn’t long before the moaning began, in a range of pitches from low to high.
I polished off the last of the third bottle of whiskey and retired around five AM, leaving a peacefully snoring Hugo on the living room floor clutching his glass of melted ice.
Once, on the wall of a public restroom, I saw a poem:
HE WHO LOVES, DEVOURS